Ep.346: Eternal Life.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

I used to think of eternal life as future tense. Today I’m here. Tomorrow I die. Then I live forever. Simple.

John has a different view of eternal life. He says,
    The life [which was from the beginning] appeared.
We have seen it and
we proclaim to you the eternal life,
            which was with the father and has appeared to us (1 Jn 1:1-2).

Here, John identifies Jesus, the hybrid God-man, as “eternal life”. This eternal life is not a “state of being” but a person. That’s weird.

Later, John says:
God has given us eternal life and this life is in his son” (1 Jn 5:11).

This eternal life is a gift God has already given us. But what about death? Is that just a bump in the road where the wheels come off my body, but my inner life continues undisturbed?

John also says,
God the father is the true God and eternal life,
And we are in him,
because we are in his Son Jesus Christ (1 John 5:20).

Here, God is eternal life.

I draw two conclusions:

First, John doesn’t give a rational definition of eternal life. Instead, he looks at Jesus, whom he knew, who was raised from the dead. John says, That kind of life is in our future too.

Second, John says, That’s not all. It’s not just future tense, it’s in our present. Why? Because Jesus, the one who lives forever, lives in us.

The true measure of my life is not sickness or health, poverty or wealth. No, its dimensions are set by the source of life that lives in me. Since that source is Jesus,I’m already living my forever life with him.

Let’s pray.

Our father, today is a day of our eternal life.
It is a day for praising you, because we will praise you forever.
It is a day for listening to your spirit, for your spirit will speak to us forever.
It is a day for receiving Christ’s blessing, for he will bless us forever.
It is a day for loving our neighbor, for we will be neighbors forever.

Today is also a day of struggle.
This harvest of new life grows side by side with the weeds of the old life.
This life that dies is a companion to a life that lives forever.
The war between good and evil still rages in my body and my mind.

O father, bring quickly that day when your children will be free, when the old life will be lost, and the new life will live forever.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.345: The Other Trinity.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

John says that Jesus came by water and blood (1 John 5:6).

An odd statement. When I ring your doorbell, I don’t come by water and blood. What does that even mean?

John says further,
There are three that testify:
The Spirit, the water, and the blood;
and these three are in agreement (1 John 5:7-8).

Interesting. But in the King James Bible another threesome accompanies the spirit, water, and blood. That Bible says,
There are three that testify in heaven:
The Father, the Word, and the Spirit,
and these three are one (1 John 5:7-8, KJV, paraphrased).

This is the simplest and clearest statement of the Trinity that has ever appeared in the Bible. But–and yes, there is a significant but. That Trinity verse isn’t found in the earliest and most reliable manuscripts, so most modern scholars reject it. How did it find its way into the Bible?

Imagine some early scholar thinking about the spirit, water, and blood, which agree in their testimony about Jesus. It’s tantalizingly close to the doctrine of the Trinity, but doesn’t quite get there. So our ancient scholar decides to help out his favorite doctrine by making minor insertion into the text.

Meanwhile, what about the Trinity-hinting phrase–the spirit, water, and blood? It seems to me John uses this to bring his letter full circle. At the beginning he said, We have seen, heard, and touched the Word of Life (1:1-2).

Now John concludes: the reality of Jesus is supported by two physical elements–water and blood–and one spiritual element, the witness of the spirit.

Why does he use water and blood as his physical witnesses? I don’t know. But I do know that traces of water and blood followed Jesus all his life. His birth to Mary involved water and blood. He was baptized in a river. His crucifixion was a bloody affair and a Roman spear brought water from his side.

He lived his water-and-blood life by the Spirit. And after the crucifixion, the Spirit raised his dead body to life.

In this simple picture of water and blood and spirit, John completes the circle of his letter. He started with Jesus as a pure spirit, “that which was from the beginning”, who became a human that John could see and touch and feel.

Now John concludes with another picture of spirit joined to flesh:
The Spirit and the water and the blood testify about Jesus,
and these three are in agreement.

Let’s pray.

O Jesus, in our short lives,
We are born in water and blood.
We are sustained by water and blood.
And soon our water and blood will flow into the earth.

But you, Jesus, were with God in the beginning.
You chose to share our time-bound experience of water and blood,
to visit us and live with us and save us.

O Jesus, dwell in our bodies of clay.
Teach us to live as you lived in this physical world.

And after our water and blood flow back to the earth
and our bodies turn to dust,
raise us in new bodies in a new world to live a new life with you.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.344: Unburdened.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

John said,
This how we love God:
by keeping his commands.
And his commands are not burdensome.
(1 Jn 5:3)

God’s commands not burdensome? Really? The Ten Commandments are a light load? Even after Jesus elaborated them?

For example, one commandment says, “Don’t commit adultery”. Jesus added, And that includes even fantasizing about sex (Mat 5:27-28).

Jesus said, Hating your brother, is like murder! (Mat 5:21-22).

He also said, “If your hand offends you, cut it off. If your eye offends you, gouge it out” (Mat 5:29-30).

If I apply Jesus’ standard of amputating body parts to my mind, because of the things I think about, I’d need a frontal lobotomy. Which would solve some of my problems, but create others.

Bible interpreters say, “Jesus didn’t want a bunch of amputees. He used hyperbole to make a point.”

Perhaps. But the hyperbole doesn’t make the commands lighter. It adds weight to already weighty commands. So what to do with John’s opinion that Jesus’ commands aren’t burdensome?

Listen to the rest of John’s statement:
His commands are not burdensome,
because everyone born of God overcomes the world.
This is the victory that overcomes the world,
even our faith (1 Jn 5:3-4).

Strangely enough, my faltering attempts to keep the commands make me believe that yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Somewhere beyond me, and growing within me, is a gift of God that disciplines my mind, reforms my desires, and shifts my values.

The spiritual life isn’t measured by whether God meets my expectations, like the store survey that asks, “Did we exceed your expectations?” Rather, God is like a life coach who asks, “Do you know what you really want?”

The psalmist said,
Delight yourself in the Lord
and he will give you the desires of your heart (Ps 37:4).

I know the desires of my flesh: food and sex and entertainment and comfort. But the desires of the heart are deeper.

In CS Lewis’ novel Queen Orual says, “you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years . . . Till that word can be dug out of us, why should [the gods] hear the babble we think we mean?” (Till We Have Faces, ch. 4).

Do you know the speech that lies at the center of your soul? What is your heart’s desire?

Let’s pray.

Our father, I still find your commands burdensome. I like my comfortable, middle-class life in a rich country. I am not sure how to leave it all and follow you. But your call rings in my ears and tugs at my heart. It changes my mind and directs my journey.

I hear people speak of finding their passion. But passion is too shallow a word for the desire of my heart. You are my heart’s desire. I want to please you. To imitate you by loving others. Even to lose my life, if that will help me find life in you.

May your spirit challenge my shallow desires, and draw me to find the riches of my heart’s desire.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.343: Is God Hiding?

Ep343: Our Unseen God.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

John says,
Whoever does not love their brother or sister
whom they have seen,
cannot love God,
whom they have not seen.
(1 Jn 4:20)

Our invisible God presents a problem for my prayers. I had hoped for years the problem would disappear as I grew in faith and matured in relationship with God.

But it didn’t work that way.

One of my favorite authors on prayer, Father Thomas Green, said that when he was young, he expected his faith would be firm and settled when he grew old.

But as he aged, he discovered that faith didn’t become easier–it attracted new difficulties.

My experience is like his. Having been dragged–kicking and screaming–into old age, faith is still a struggle. I’d like a rich harvest of settled insights and obvious decisions, but my faith is still a garden that needs watering and weeding and protection from frost and a fence against carrot-eating rabbits and cabbage-munching deer.

Not that my faith is of the carrots and cabbage variety. But the proofs of Christianity, so strong and convincing in my youth, are weaker now. The grand design of the universe used to reveal God’s greatness. Now it sometimes seems a muddle of incomprehensible dark matter and speed-of-light expansion, held loosely together by formulas I don’t understand.

Faith is a choice. A reasonable choice, given the other options, but still a choice. In prayer I often wait in darkness for the God I cannot see.

Dark matter exerts an unseen force in the universe, preventing it from spinning out of control. Faith is the dark matter of my spirit, holding my life in the life of God. It is the unseen gravity that keeps my life from spinning out of control.

As John who says,
Whoever does not love his brother
whom he has seen,
cannot love God,
whom he has not seen (1 Jn 4:20)..

The strongest apologetic for God is not rational proofs of his existence, but love among his disciples.

Let’s pray.

Our father, whom we do not see, you taught us to know you and love you by knowing and loving each other.

Jesus invited us into his circle of love, saying, “As the father has loved me, I have loved you” (Jn 15:9). And, “By this the world will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn 13:35).

Deliver us from our obsession with rational explanations. Free us from the need to see and prove you. Liberate us from simple but false explanations of who we are and who you are.

There is a cloud of unknowing between you and us. As we face the darkness of that cloud, shine your light in our hearts. Give us grace to know you by faith, and to love others as you love us.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.342: No Fear?

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

I recently read an internet list of the 10 most common fears. It included arachnophobia–fear of spiders; claustrophobia–fear of enclosed spaces; and aerophobia–fear of flying.

Though I’ve dealt with fear all my life, the list wasn’t much help. My fears were never as pointed or definable as “fear of spiders” or “fear of flying”. Mine was a spirit of fear, an assortment of nameless fears that churned my stomach and twisted my view of life.

For years, I had no name for my problem. Then one day in college as I stepped into the winter cold for a 20-minute walk to my dorm, I realized, “This feeling that I feel so often is fear!”

It was a relief to have a name for it. But what was I afraid of? I was afraid of people. I was afraid life would overwhelm me. That I might fail as a student, and as a human. I feared I’d slide into a pit of hopelessness and despair.

What to do about fear, now that I had a name for it? I read John who says:
There is no fear in love,
but perfect love casts out fear
because fear has torment.
(1 Jn 4:18)

The only perfect love I knew was God’s love. Would that be strong enough to dislodge the fear?

I mentioned my experience to one of the elders at church, who said, “There’s another solution to fear. Look at Psalm 57.”
When I am afraid I will put my trust in you.
In God, whose word I trust.
In the Lord, whose word I praise.
In God I put my trust,
I will not be afraid.
(Ps 57:3-4)

Love and faith. Solutions to fear. But they didn’t help me overnight. They are signposts that point me in a lifelong direction, teaching me that the churning fear in my stomach is not a true assessment of danger, that the paralyzing obsessions in my mind are false guides to reality.

I can live in an alternate universe, where God is in control, where trust replaces fear, where love wins forever.

Let’s pray.

Our father, we have had much to fear since Adam fell. We are locked out of the garden, we pull weeds east of Eden. Violence and wars dismay us; hurricanes and wildfires damage the earth; conspiracy theories and obsessions corrupt our society.

But we trust in you. Though you shut us out of Eden, you invite us into your family. Though angels with fiery swords block our return, you send your son to pull weeds with us and show us the way forward.

May faith free our minds. May your love quiet our obsessions. May trust in you drive out our fears. May we walk confidently as your children.

We trust you will have the final say, that our lives and our world and the new world to come will be rooted and grounded in love.

As John says, “There is no fear in love” (1 Jn 4:18).

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.341: God is . . . What?

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

Finish this statement with one word. God is . . . what? What comes to mind for you? God is good? God is holy? God is father?

John tells us,
Whoever does not love
does not know God,
because God is love (1 John 4:8).

God is love, one of three remarkable “God is . . .” statements by John.

The other two?

“God is spirit” and “God is light”.

The first statement “God is spirit” was delivered to the woman at the well, who had had five husbands, and was now in a sixth relationship. Jesus said to her, God is spirit. It is not where you worship that matters, but how. Worship in spirit and truth (Jn 4:24).

I would have advised to Jesus to speak simply to the woman, tell her something she can understand, perhaps something appropriate to spiritual immaturity. Instead, Jesus gave her an advanced lesson in worship–worship God in spirit and truth.

Did she have any inkling of what he meant? Do you know how to worship in spirit and truth? The woman’s takeaway from her encounter with Jesus wasn’t, “At last. Now I have a credible theory of worship!” Her takeaway was, “Jesus is amazing. He knows all about me.”

John also says “God is light” (1 Jn 1:5). Light is a metaphor for God. Maybe it points to holiness and purity, or maybe to transparency and vulnerability. Have you ever thought of God as transparent? He lets us see right through him?

A more scary thought: I am transparent to God. His light shining through me exposes what I hide and what I highlight about myself, my truths and my falsehoods.

John’s third statement is, “God is love”. John says we should love others because God loved us first (1 Jn 4:16, 19. 21).

These are remarkable standards for following God.
God is spirit. Worship in spirit.
God is light. Walk in the light.
God is love. Love one another.

Let’s pray.

Our father, as smoke from summer wildfires darkens my city, I worship you as God of light. Clear the smoke from my eyes. Help me walk in the light as you are in the light.

We welcome your light as the spring sun that warms the soil and grows our gardens. We respect your light as a lighthouse that warns of disaster. We fear your light when it interrogates our sins. We endure your light when it comes as radiation to burn away our cancer.

O father, speak to us in love as well as light. May we be glad when you say, “Well done”. May we believe when you forgive our sins. May we receive from you the healing of memories and the transforming of relationships.

O father, teach us to worship. Our culture worships the body. Free us from the cult of body-building and makeovers and sports and sex.

Remind us that we are embodied spirits, and that you are pure spirit. Teach us to worship you in spirit and in truth.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.340: Us and Them.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

John divides the world into “us” and “them” saying,
They are from the world.
They speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.
We are from God.
Whoever knows God listens to us (1 Jn 4:5-6).

Perhaps in John’s time it was obvious who “us” and “them” were. Those who served Jesus were “us”. Those who didn’t were “them”. Plain and simple.

But today’s religious landscape far more convoluted. If John visited today, I’d ask, “So, what do you think? Look around and tell me who is ‘us’ and who is ‘them’.”

John isn’t likely to drop by, so I put the question to you. “Look at all the churches and groups using Jesus’ name. Tell me who’s in and who’s out of God’s circle?”

Would you include evangelicals like Baptists and Alliance? Mainline liberals like United Methodists and Anglicans? Pentecostals? Seventh-Day Adventists? Jehovah’s Witnesses? Mormons?

Perhaps when John says “we”, he means individuals, not groups or denominations. Are “we” people who share a common experience like “born again” or a common doctrine like the Apostles Creed?

John says
Whoever knows God listens to us.
Whoever is not from God doesn’t listen to us.
This is how we recognize the spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood (1 Jn 4:6).

Yes, there is a spirit of falsehood in the world, and a spirit of truth. Jesus said, “I am the truth” (Jn 14:6). He didn’t describe truth as orthodox doctrine or good behavior, but as a person–himself. Our path to truth? Get close to that person.

What separates truth from falsehood is not always the facts, which can be interpreted and disputed. Nor is it simply the goodness or badness of those involved. It is often the spirit behind the words, the spirit of the stories, or the spirit of the allegations. Some spirits resonate with the spirit of Christ, others don’t sound like Jesus at all. And some people’s spirit just confuses me.

I’m cautious with John’s statement that whoever knows God listens to us, and whoever doesn’t know God doesn’t. Many people don’t listen to me, but I don’t immediately write them off as “them”, not “us”. Distrust can be created by something in my spirit. Or something in the spirit. Or something in both of us.

How do we recognize the spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood? In his gospel, John says “When the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13).

Let’s pray.

Our father, beyond the boundaries of the explored world, an old map says, “Here be dragons”.

That’s how I feel when I reach the limits of my doctrinal and rational knowledge, when I face the unknown ocean where we must discern the spirits. Where truth is not a rational argument, but the person of Christ. Where the way to truth is not more and better study, but the leading of the spirit of truth.

O father, forgive our sins of the spirit. Cleanse and reorganize our inner lives, that we may know your spirit, and love his truth, and follow his leading into all that is holy and righteous and good.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.339: Test the Spirits.

Ep339: Test the Spirits.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

John tells us to test the spirits. He says,
Don’t believe every spirit.
Test the spirits to see if they are from God,
because false prophets are everywhere (1 Jn 4:1).

Yes, false prophets are everywhere. Right wing and left wing politicians, cultural warriors in church and society, media that promote inclusiveness or traditional values. Who to believe?

One approach to John’s statement is to adopt a narrow focus. Perhaps he is speaking only about religious prophets who claim to represent God.

I prefer a broader approach. Eight billion of us are alive because God breathed into our bodies of clay. Not all of us are prophets in the narrow sense. But we are all prophets in a wider way, in that our spirits express something of God who sustains us and something of the evil that plagues us.

John provides a test of spirits when he says,
This is how you recognize the Spirit of God:
          Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh
                           is from God:
Every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus
isn’t from God, but is the spirit of antichrist (1 Jn 4:2-3).

In John’s black and white view, there are only two qualities of spirit: the Spirit of God, and the spirit of antichrist. As I try to discern the spirit of people I encounter, I find it helpful to ask, Where is God at work in this spirit? Where evil is at work?

Paul speaks about the spirit of preachers. He says some try to stir up trouble by preaching Christ out of envy, rivalry, and selfish ambition (Phil 1:15, 17). Others preach Christ with good will and love.

Paul’s advice? Not to test the spirit of preachers or try judging their motives. He asks, “What does it matter? Here’s what is important–that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is being preached” (Phil 1:18).

Let’s pray.

Our father, as we walk in your world, we see weeds and wheat growing together in churches, societies, and lives (Mat 13:24-30). Jesus said, Don’t try to pull all the weeds, or you’ll wreck the wheat with your work.

Like the wheat fields, our personal spirits are full of weeds and wheat. As are those who preach the gospel, engage in politics, or blog on the internet.

Give us grace to see the facts and discern the spirits, to recognize and distrust the spirit of antichrist wherever it grows. To recognize and work with your spirit, wherever he is at work.

May the wheat in our lives grow, and the weeds be weeded out. Bring quickly the time when you will reveal all the spirits, when you will gather the wheat into your barn, and throw the weeds into the fire.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.338: How do we Know Jesus Lives in Us?

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

1 John 3 says,
We know Jesus lives in us
by the Spirit he gave us (v. 24).

Is that how you know Jesus lives in you? Because you recognize his presence in your inner life?

A wise lady once said to me, “Do you believe that Jesus lives in you?” “Yes,” I replied, “I do.” “Then shouldn’t you begin an inward journey to find and meet with him there?” she asked. That kind of blew my mind. I’d never thought of it that way.

In the town where I grew up, a retired U.S. army man umpired softball. Short, broad, and loud, he looked fierce in face mask, chest protector, and shin pads. He sometimes led singing in the church I attended. His favorite hymns? Onward Christian Soldiers, of course. And Sound the Battle Cry. The army was in his blood, and his Christian life was filled with metaphors of war.

In those years, I kept my troubles to myself. But if I had wanted to confide in someone, I wouldn’t have chosen Army Man. Partly because his spirit, his inner life, was so different from mine. And I think his Christian spirit was mixed with his warrior spirit in a way that frightened me.

Like Army Man, we all have a mixed spirit. Paul tells us to cleanse ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit (2 Cor 7:1). In the battle against evil, we need to start by cleaning up our own spirit.

Paul tells us to be made new in the spirit of our mind (Eph 4:23). It’s not just incorrect thinking we need to cure, but the deeper attitudes and assumptions that influence our thinking. We need a change in the spirit of our mind.

Early in my Christian life, I thought the main problem was behavior. I just needed to get my actions right. I soon discovered that behavior management was rather difficult. Perhaps even impossible.

So I read some Christian books that said behavior comes from the way I think. More and better Bible study, and a better program for meditating should fix my thinking. But it didn’t.

Now Paul tells me I need to clean up my spirit. What tools might help with this project?

Let’s pray.

Our father, once I thought the gospel was the good news of behavior management. But my behavior is still unmanaged.

I thought I could transform my mind by meditating on your word, but my mind is still unreformed.

And now I discover I need a new spirit. Teach me to know my spirit and your Spirit. Cleanse me from all filthiness of body and spirit. Renew me in my spirit and in the spirit of my mind.

Teach me to know that you live in me by the Spirit you have given me (1 John 3:24).

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube

Ep.337: Life, Death, and a Scrupulous Conscience.

Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

In 1 John 3, the author gives two examples of death.

The first is when Adam and Eve’s son Cain murdered his brother Abel. John explains that Abel’s good deeds exposed Cain’s badness, motivating him to hate his brother and kill him. John says if we obey Christ’s command to love each other, the world take a lesson from Cain and will hate us. Prepare to be hated.

John warns: Don’t respond to hate by hating. If you hate someone, you’re a murderer. Stop your thoughts of murder while they are still in your heart, before you begin to act on them.

John’s second example of death is Christ. Instead of murdering his brother, Christ died for his brothers and sisters. John says we too should be ready to die for others.

Die for someone? Really? I am stunned by John’s black-and-white take on life. He says you’re either a death-dealer like Cain or a love-giver and a life-giver like Christ. Not for John the shades of emotional gray that confuse my life, or the misty flood plains on which I live.

But John doesn’t call us to introspect about our emotional lives, our loves and hates. He says, Don’t just sit there, do something. If you see someone in need, help them. Christ calls us to move beyond words and sentiments to actions and truth.

John asks,
How do we know we belong to the truth?
How can we set our hearts at rest in God’s presence,
especially if our hearts condemn us? (1 John 3:19)

His answer:
We know God is greater than our condemning hearts.
He knows everything (vv. 19-20).

Early in my Christian life, this verse left me in an agony of despair. I took John to mean: If my muddled heart knows enough of my sin to condemn me, then God, who knows everything, must have more and better reasons to condemn me.

Part of my problem was a scrupulous conscience, a conscience oversensitive to the slightest hint of sin, a conscience constantly judging my thoughts and actions. My Christian tradition complicated my confusion by teaching that conscience was God’s gift to be obeyed, not a problem to be solved.

I finally took my confusion to the New Testament to see what it says about conscience. Surprise! It taught that conscience is an unreliable judge of good and evil.

The King James Bible talks about a weak conscience, a defiled conscience, a conscience seared with a hot iron, and a conscience loaded with dead works. Hebrews says we require training to know the difference between good and evil (5:14). Watch out! An untrained conscience is a deadly trap. It’s an unruly puppy, chewing slippers and making messes. An untrained conscience needs obedience lessons!

This gives John’s words a different quality. Yes, God is greater than my heart and knows everything. God knows how flawed and self-centered my conscience is, how faulty its judgements about right and wrong.

Let’s pray.

O father, if our hearts condemn us, you are greater than our hearts. You know everything. You know more than enough to condemn us, but you choose to give mercy and healing.

Teach us not to trust the condemning judgments of our muddled conscience. Teach us to discern good and evil.

Teach us not to hate like Cain but to love like Christ.

Teach us not to overthink and overvalue our emotions, whether they are dominated by love and compassion or repugnance and hate. Teach us to respect our emotions and hear what they tell us. And teach us to act in love.

Amen.

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.

YouTube channel: Pray with Me – YouTube